From Warlord to Restorer of the Golden Age

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From Warlord to Restorer of the Golden Age

• End of Civil Wars and Augustan Settlement

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Prima Porta Statue
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Romes tradition of government, down to Julius
Caesar, was characterized by distributed power
and multiple sources of decision. That was never
to return.J.A. Crook, Cambridge Ancient
History (10, 2nd ed. 1996 113)
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Aftermath of IdesRenewal of Civil War
(Liberators vs. Caesarians)

• Octavian, great-nephew/adopted son of Caesar M.
  Antonius, consul for 44 BCE
• The Second Triumvirate November 43 BCE
  (Octavian, Antony, M. Lepidus)
• Caesarians defeat Brutus and Cassius at Philippi
  in Macedonia (42 BCE)
• Antony in East Octavian in Italy

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Towards Renewal of Civil War

• Antony abandons Octavia for Cleopatra VII of
  Egypt
• Retirement of Lepidus (37-36 BCE)
• Antony divorces Octavia
• Propaganda wars between Octavian and Antony
  (33-32 BCE)
• Battle at Actium (31 BCE)
• New Province of Egypt

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The Battle Of Actium 31 BCE
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Provinces of the Roman Empire

• From Republic to Principate

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Constitutional ArrangementsFrom Octavian to
Augustus

• Octavian/Augustus (born 63 BCE)
• Triumvir (with Antony and Lepidus) for restoring
  the Republic
• Consul 31-23 BCE
• Settlement of 27 BCE
• Settlement of 23 BCE

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Settlement of 27 BCE

• Octavian returns control of state to the Roman
  Senate and Roman People
• Ten-year imperium over super-province of Egypt,
  Gaul, Spain, and Syria
• Dedicatory Shield voted by Senate (valor,
  clemency, justice, piety)
• Title Augustus

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Settlement of 23 BCE

• Resignation of Consulship
• Control over elections (commendatio)
• Appointment of Generals in Senatorial Provinces
• Appointment of Legates in Imperial Provinces
• Imperium Maius Proconsulare (powers greater than
  a proconsuls)
• Tribunicia Potestas (tribunician powers)

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Augustan Settlement and the Roman Peace (pax
Romana)27 BCE-CE 14

• Cui Bono?

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Beneficiaries of the Pax Romana

• Roman plebs Bread and Circuses
• Senatorial aristocracy Preservation of
  Republican trappings and traditional honors
• Equestrian order secure trade and markets
  empire-wide
• Partisans and Supporters successful careers and
  honors (Agrippa, Maecenas)

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Methods of Control

• Legions reduction from about 75 to 28
• Personal appointment of generals
• Aerarium militare (military pension fund) from CE
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• Urban Control in Rome
• Praetorian Guard (9 cohorts 3 billeted in city
  remainder in nearby towns from 27 BCE two
  praetorian prefects from 2 BCE)

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Ideology Aurea Aetas Moral and Social
Legislation in the Golden Age

• Julian laws on marriage
• Punishes celibates and widowers who do not
  remarry ineligibility for inheritances and
  legacies prohibited from public games
• Marriages between senators and freedwomen
  prohibited
• Laws against adultery
• Laws rewarding child rearing (ius trium
  liberorum)
• Restrictions on slave manumissions
• Lex Fufia Caninia (2 BCE) Lex Aelia Sentia (CE
  4)
• Ludi saeculares Horace composes carmen saeculare
  for 17 BCE

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Princeps andPater Patriae (2 BCE)

• Augustus as Super-Patron of Roman State

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When I held my thirteenth consulship 2 BCE,
the Senate, the equestrian order, and the entire
Roman people gave me the title of father of the
country and decreed that this title should be
inscribed in the vestibule of my house, in the
Julian Senate house, and in the Augustan forum on
the pedestal of the chariot which was set up in
my honor by decree of the Senate.Augustus, Res
Gestae, 35
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Conflicting Viewpoints

• Assessments of Augustus Reign

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In my sixth and seventh consulships 28 and 27
BCE, after I had put an end to the civil wars,
having attained supreme power by universal
consent, I transferred the state from my own
power to the control of the Roman Senate and the
people. For this service of mine I received the
title of Augustus by decree of the Senate, and
the doorposts of my house were publicly decorated
with laurels, the civic crown was affixed over my
doorway, and a golden shield was set up in the
Julian Senate house, which, as the inscription on
this shield testifies, the Roman Senate and
people gave me in recognition of my valor,
clemency, justice, and devotion. After that time
I excelled all in authority, but I possessed no
more power than the others who were my colleagues
in each magistracy.Augustus, Res Gestae, 34
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It was said that filial duty and state
necessity were merely assumed as a mask. It was
really from a lust of sovereignty that Augustus
had excited the veterans by bribery, had, when a
young man and a subject, raised an army, tampered
with the consuls legions, and feigned an
attachment to the faction of Pompey.Citizens
were proscribed, lands divided, without so much
as the approval of those who executed the deeds.
Even granting that the deaths of Cassius and the
Brutii were sacrifices to the hereditary
enmitystill Sextus Pompey had been deluded by
the phantom of peace, and Lepidus by the mask of
friendship. Subsequently, Antony had been lured
on by the treaties of Tarentum and Brundisium,
and by his marriage with the sister, and paid by
his death the penalty of a treacherous alliance.
No doubt there was peace after all this, but it
was a peace stained with blood.Tacitus,
Annals, 1.10